Homeowners.4 in 25 Minutes!

That's how long our closing took, definitely a record time! We were out of there by 9:30 and I'm going to have some time to prepare for class. Too bad I'd rather be preparing walls for painting right now... :(

Take a look at this wall color:

It's a nice color, but very bright and it's not "us" at all! So we'll be painting the dining room a dark brown color (from this zero VOC brand) called "Cloak & Dagger" -- I really like this quirky "literary" name. ;) We're starting tonight. Photos forthcoming.

Well, I'm sure glad this will be my last "House Hunting" labeled post for a long time! Phew! Now on to moving (I'm not excited about the moving part, only about the painting and decorating! ;)

This is it! (?)

My 3 X 3 post was pointless, I admit it. I only wanted to write it so I could use it as a starting point for this one. You see, I wanted to concentrate on the new house on this post, but having previously written about the first three houses.

I'm excited to be buying a house, I really am, but I am also a bit... I don't know... apprehensive, perhaps? Because "this is it." At least for the next 5-6 years (in the highly unlikely event K doesn't get tenure) and perhaps for much longer than that.

It feels strange, almost "anti-climatic" to be finally settling down, especially after all the upheaval in our lives in the past 4 years. I think this house is perfect and I think we'll be very happy there, but I'm just so used by now to having to keep postponing things in life that it feels almost strange to think about permanence as far as a house and living in a certain place is concerned. (the whole "Georgia debacle" didn't help much either, sigh).

So...  last week we bought this patio set.

And today... the commitment letter from the bank was sent to the sellers. That means we are all set. The house will be ours in 21 days. This is it.

I Can't Wait!!

I can't wait to move to our new house. In a month we'll be home owners again and I can hardly believe it!

I drove by it last week and I was beyond delighted to find out that the yard has lots of bulbs planted, particularly in the backyard. It looks like most are daffodils, but I also saw some pretty crocuses. Isn't that amazing?

I really miss this:

and that:

 and those:

and, of course, him :(

I'm hoping to get a couple of kitties. If, and only if, the boys' allergies don't act up too much. :( Let's think positive. Cats or no cats, it'll be nice to have our own house again!

But Wait, There's Good News Too!

That was today's bad news.

The good news is that as of today our whole down payment is in our bank account which means that things are falling into place for our closing on April 21st.

In order to have an easier financing application process we have been instructed by the broker to have the money in our account for a month before we apply.

Now the only thing I'm hoping for is that we can get a low interest rate and that rates don't go up before we can lock ours.

This makes me very happy and for a little while I can stop thinking about the nephew or niece, the beloved and desired [grand]/child that we're hoping for so much.

Home Inspected, Can't Wait to Move In!

A cold winter evening is definitely a good "test" time to verify whether a house will be cozy and welcoming and the house we're planning to buy definitely passed the test with flying colors! The fact that we're going to have a new house got me thinking about decorating, wall colors (later I'll show you the bright burgundy color of the dining room) and things such as modern dining furniture. I'm also glad that I will soon have the chance to review a product, not yet chosen (but probably a much needed item of cookware), from the website I linked to above. I'll consider it a "housewarming" gift. :)

When we got back home after the inspection, K kept saying that this third visit to the house really made him sure that "this is the one" and I felt the same way. The boys also loved the house and got to choose their bedroom (well, I kind of convinced them to pick the room I thought was best, more on that some other time). Linton was very relieved to see the family room in the basement where he can have his toys (the most important requirement in a house for Linton is that it has room for his toys and to play, my dear boy!). The home inspector was nice and got the boys involved in the testing of the garage doors, which they obviously loved.

I can't wait for the closing in April!

Take a Look:

I love this breakfast nook in the kitchen. Since there's a bay window in the living room and this, I call it the house's "bay area" (since it's not really a window). And I think that the brick patio in the backyard (I! love! brick! patios!) is just so lovely! (not to mention all the mature trees).

Those who read the previous post know what these photos here mean. We're excited, but oh, so rational and grounded. That's what past experience does to you... it takes the sparkle out of life sometimes. I'm sure it will be fun when mid-April comes around & we have the keys to go in, though! And I can't wait to plant tons of flowers. :)

In Case You're Wondering...

... what's going on in the house-hunting front:

We wrote an offer for that house today. If it's accepted, I'll post a picture (or several), OK?

If they decide not to accept it, we'll keep looking. It's a buyer's market and there are many properties out there. This one is pretty nice, but it is on the small side so... if it falls through, then it's not meant to be. That's how we're looking at it.

We're offering 10K less than asking price and 3% seller's assist for our closing which will bring their price down considerably. I think they won't be happy, but our agent (extremely experienced -- 20+ years -- & a teacher of real estate ethics) thinks it's a reasonable offer.

In the end, the less attached we are to the property, the best the likelihood that we'll make a smart business decision.  We've done well in our three previous houses, so I see no reason why we'll go wrong this time.

I'll keep you posted.

P.S. I didn't write more this week because we spent a lot of energy in the house hunting and the teaching also took time. What took the most time, though, was "Tiger Mothering" my sons (ha ha ha!), seriously, I've been doing a good job getting them to practice their piano daily. Tough work (Amy Chua is totally right about how hard it is, but I don't go to the extremes she went, obviously)! It helps that they're super motivated to play the Wii game their aunt & uncle sent them for Xmas and they don't get to do that until they've done homework & practiced piano. So... yeah, I've been busy & tired, not sleeping that well and having weird dreams (if you're curious I can blog that). but I'll let you know how the house thing goes as soon as we hear back from them (it should be on Monday).

Maybe We Found "The One"

Location, location, location... isn't that what they say about real state?

Well... yesterday the first house we saw was in the very neighborhood that K said he wanted to buy a house on ever since we moved here. And we loved it! It's on the smaller size and in the high end of our price range (hence, expensive, particularly considering square footage).

But it's just so cozy, so inviting, with such a lovely backyard and views too! We're going back tomorrow and I'll tell you more then, OK? Maybe I'll share a photo -- though the front is pretty normal, not particularly remarkable or beautiful.

I'm really tired. It was good to have a chance to go house-hunting without the boys yesterday (they had school and we didn't!).  Well... more tomorrow!

Short-Sale

For anyone dying to know how we like the "pool house" ;) I'd like to say that it is all that jazz, but...

... it's a short sale. :(

Short sales are tough because the buyer is at the mercy of the bank who (or which?) is open to higher offers from other people or can foreclose on the property right up until the day of the closing. Not a comfortable position to be on, right?  I'll let you know what we'll decide to do.

We saw several more houses and two of them were nice -- very similar to our old house, down to the very same kind of hardwood floor, kitchen cabinets and even trees! So it's not like we don't have options, but the pool house is really perfect because it's so big and can be improved upon in countless ways. Of course a bigger house is more expensive to heat and stuff... but... we will continue to be budget conscious people and be able to pay our bills, I'm sure. So... we'll see what will happen.

Mixed Up Buyers

We're getting to the point in our house-hunting process when looking at houses has become a chore... (sigh!). It obviously is the ultimate chore -- finding a suitable place for one's family to live. It's such a huge responsibility, isn't it? I'm sure we'll be fine in whatever house we decide to buy, but still, making that decision is difficult.

Yesterday I wasn't excited because I had to split my attention between the first day of classes and thinking about houses. My class went well and I was in good spirits when we set out. We got a late start and saw some pretty bad houses (some of them so old, with such uneven, sunken floors that one had the impression to be walking in a floating ship, seriously!). And then we saw this teeny, tiny place (not SO tiny, with a basement, deck and all) that is also hugely cheap and I felt pretty depressed about the prospects of living there. I didn't want to talk to K about houses too much last night.

Then... K spent hours again looking at everything out there. This time using our realtor's website (we had forgotten about it). Well, well, well... he found this amazing house and I'm holding my breath until we see it tomorrow (I hope the realtor was able to schedule it for tomorrow). The crazy thing is...

drumroll...

... this house has a lovely in-ground pool! Isn't that insane?

And it's really big, on lots of land, with nice trees, in a rural area, probably with lovely views. Great square footage, double car attached garage, huge unfinished basement. And affordable price. What's not to like? It is fine as it is (move-in condition), but will benefit from gradual renovations (particularly updating of kitchen, floors, etc).

Anyway. Yeah. That's the latest development. It's been less than 24h since K found the house (I think it was close to midnight when he showed it to me) and I've been feeling more cheerful since he did. I'll let you know how tomorrow's viewings go!

P.S. the builder took that nice house out of the market for a while. Smart guy.

Never Say Never! :)

In case anyone out there is curious about our ongoing house hunting, I thought I'd give you an update.

I'm slightly amused to report that we're seriously considering putting an offer on yet another fixer-upper in spite of the fact that K has said emphatically that he never ever wanted to do any home renovations again!

We saw the house yesterday morning and it's not nearly as bad as our previous house was when we bought it. There's no need to redo roof or siding, only in the sheds, the house itself seems to be fine, but there are TONS of cosmetic stuff and other things to do such as replacing floors, adding more cabinetry, replacing appliances and such. Not to mention the cleaning. SIGH.

The house is currently a rental property, with at least 7-8 adults (one elderly) and two huge dogs, so I'll let you imagine the rest (for starters, we had to see the house with the people there). Oh, and it had a fire three years ago, when it was bought by current investor owner and thoroughly redone (the upstairs -- new roof, floors, siding, etc. He only spent 40K, though, so it was well done, but it's basic stuff). We're planning to have a home-inspection before even making the offer just to be on the safe side. It does look OK, though.

So, yeah... I'm laughing about that one. But it's truly exciting, I think, to be able to afford renovations because of the low price and to choose cabinetry (I'm dreaming of a pantry again) and floors and see an ugly house become beautiful again. If this is the house we buy, you'll know all about it. It'll be fun! (& really really tiring)

The Hard Decisions Just Keep A-Coming... :(

I do hope this is one of the last of the "big ones" in our lives, though, I truly do.

So, yeah... the whole house thing. It's hard. And, sure, I know, totally a ridiculously petty "first world" problem. But this is my insignificant blog about my insignificantly (white) privileged accidental-immigrant-person's life, so there you go.

The BIG question now is whether to "give away" between 14 to 20 thousand dollars to a "big bank" and live in a smaller, pretty plain and older, but cheaper, residence or "waste" 70 to 80K in interest over the next 15+ years and live more comfortably in a brand-new, energy-efficient place.  (in either case the plan is to pay in it off in between 8-15 years, depending on the initial cost).

We had pretty much decided for the newer, bigger option, but twice now, K balked at the idea (remember the old metaphor for our lives? Roller-coaster? Ups & downs?). The first time I totally flipped, you remember, right? The second time was Monday night and all I did was shrug and say, "Whatever, you decide, honey, I'll support you in whatever decision you make." (and then, of course, I "blah-blah-blahed" a bit under my breath about how the boys will be gone by the time we can afford to live in a decent, nice place with enough room for them to play and stuff, blah, blah).

We saw a couple of the smaller/cheaper places yesterday, after I got the boys late to school. :-) And we also saw another new place, BETTER (and more house for your buck) than the other one because it has a basement, BUT, with dark floors and cabinets (dark wood is just NOT my thing for some reason I haven't yet discovered). So we were all flustered and confused and though the thinking switched towards paying more to enjoy more in a house that we can actually retire in if we want to, we were all mixed up with our two main options at this point. Blah.

I know... first world problem. Silly "American-Dream" kind of problem. And yet, shelter remains one of the primary needs of human beings. I may come back to brainstorm a little more about this issue, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

The biggest problem for us is this: we were completely scarred by our experience with our previous house. We owned three houses and we were pretty successful in buying and selling all three, but the fixer-upper-from-hell (FUfH) basically "ruined" our lives! I never called it that before in the blog, but you bet it was, see the list of things we did to it here, behold the amazing transformation that we made happen with ALL the savings of nine years of our lives going down the drain in the process... K keeps telling me that we wasted those 9 years of our lives (because of the FUfH), so now we need to be very careful and plan things right so we can "do the right thing." And I know that in the end we will.

I have absolutely no regrets, though, and even those painful regrets are completely forgotten now.

Time to move on!! Yipee!! I'm excited, though, about moving to a bigger place. Moving is a big pain, but I enjoy it (in a crazy-twisted way, I suppose).

Always on My Mind

No, it's not Georgia.

Thankfully, I'm over Georgia. And one of the things that helped a great deal to get over it was looking at houses. So, yeah... it's that house that is always on my mind lately.

And last night K spent a lot of time furiously calculating how much we can afford to pay per month, how much the monthly payment would be with various interest rates and with various amounts of down payments. Debating whether to pay some points or not, or whether to close earlier (breaking the lease and having to pay rent for a few months -- perhaps asking the seller to help out) to get lower interest rates... you get the idea.

I want to go back and see the house again, to make sure that our "love" is indeed passionate and strong enough for such a huge commitment. I'll keep you posted!

P.S. I hope you don't mind shorter and more frequent posting as I try to reach my goal of 241 posts (at least) this year.

Back in the Game

So... yeah. Sorry for that negative post (so badly written! I wrote "anyway" some 4-5 times in that post, yikes!). K started freaking out about buying a house and I think it's a bit of post-traumatic-stress disorder because of what happened with the previous house, so, yeah... some stress and heartbreak for nothing. Roller-coaster, remember?

Calculating, calculating... it's all K does now. And it's true that home ownership means giving tons of money away to some nameless investors who are doing nothing while we work hard to pay the mortgage. Not the most appealing idea in the world. Actually, it's downright depressing if you think long and hard about it. That doesn't mean we won't do it again. For the fourth time. We were OK before, so, hopefully, we'll be OK now too.

I talked to my parents this weekend -- they were with my brother in Brazil for a few days and I just uploaded photos of the house so they can see it. After all, my dad is helping us out with the down payment (we're trading our lot+house next to his house in Brazil for a single lot he has in another development and he's paying us back the difference). We still don't know whether it's going to work out, but we'll try. And we're going into it with eyes wide open -- not that we weren't for the first three houses. I'll keep you posted.

P.S. I will be posting more often in the days to come so I can fulfill my goal of at least 241 posts in 2010. 17 more posts to go. I better keep posting!

Nah, it was a fluke

Forget what I said, OK? I won't delete the post 'cause it's just a record of what's going on in our lives (or, more precisely, my inner life). It was a charming moment while it lasted, but reality has to be faced in a grown up manner. 

Oh, and the next post I'll write will be meant as a joke. Some twisted humor. Anyway... I will write it just after this one in spite that it'll sound strangely funny. 

So, anyway, air goes out of the balloon just like that. We DO have to save for a couple of years to be able to afford a mortgage. We cannot just pay through the nose monthly just because whiny me doesn't want to live cramped up for another year and a half. That would be stupid. Yeah, I hate myself for being like this (wanting things I cannot have and hating money and being so whiny and insufferable). 

Anyway... leaving the "tantrumy" discussion aside ("why did we even have to start looking at houses? why? oh why?!!!") -- 'cause I'm done with that in "real life" -- we have to get rational and avoid past mistakes at all costs. Though that link and the fact that I had to read that posts and some more from 2007  last night sounds a bit cruel for me right now (since I feel pretty disappointed too). 

I had more to say, but now I feel so deflated that all I can do is to stop here and go ahead and write the (now uselessly silly) photo post I've been planing to write for days. Though my head hurts.

P.S.  WARNING: boooring description of my crazy day. Read at your own risk. Longer than the post itself, yikes!!

it has been a loooong day. I went to the university to meet a student who didn't show up (he hadn't checked his email), but then it was nice 'cause I made a handout for my evening class. I was going to have lunch with K, but I found out there was a departmental meeting with lunch provided so I stayed. But staying meant that I had less than 3 hours to cook the food I'd planned to bring for my students. I left in a hurry and forgot my purse in the meeting room [called dept. secretary, asked her to give purse to a colleague]. Rushed home and warned my students over email that I might be late and even got phone #s so I could text them for them to come help me unload the car. I baked for 3 hours (Brazilian carrot cake -- I thought I had posted a recipe here in the blog, but I haven't! I should do it!; a heart of palm casserole and Brazilian "cheese rolls" [pão de queijo] + cooked a pot of soup for K & the boys to take to a potluck party) and rushed to class over 20 minutes late. When I got there, the students told me the class was locked and I had forgotten my keys, so we headed to the department building and, thankfully, there was an unlocked classroom!! And the department chair came taste my food (do I score points or what? not that she can do anything for me other than give me the two classes I already have, but, maybe... someday in the future that will change). So... yeah. Drove home, etc. And now had stressful discussion with hubby & made him upset. Just like me. blah. Headache is better! Blogging is confirmed as therapeutic. 

It Looks Like We Might Be Entering into a Serious Relatioship

If you're a longtime reader, you'll remember my 2007 posts about finding a house, and how sad I was when we had to "break up" with the house we thought was "the one."

Ah... sometimes I don't even remember the crazy things we've been through in the past four years. Wow. Just reading that post feels weird.

2007-2008 were CRAZY years. In 07 we made three different offers and had two home inspections (what a waste of money that was, with that first house). After we bought the other house I drove past "the one" a few times, but I quickly forgot my very slight heartbreak.

Anyway... everything that has happened between then and now has made us much more cautious and careful. I don't think we made any mistakes with our previous house either (since it did sell). I'm still grieving for it a little bit -- it comes and goes and doesn't stay with me long enough that warrants blogging about it, but someday I do want to do it. But the house in the post I've linked to above? I had all but forgotten it, were it not for the fact that the current house we like reminds us of it a little bit (they're both "box-like").

So, yeah... we saw four houses today. We liked the main "alternative," but there neighborhood isn't good and there's no doubt that that charming property is the best one. We won't make an offer until January, and we're thinking about this very carefully and rationally. I'm not scared anymore either. I took tons of photos, but I can't wait to go back and take more (I missed taking pictures from some angles :(  ). Online albums will be made for family members and any friends who may want to see more.

I think this is cool. I hope it all works out. I know it will.

Edited to add: I re-read the 2007 post and now I know one thing I want to do for sure in the new house, whichever it may be: I want to plant a Bradford Pear tree or Kwanzan Cherry (see "carpet of flower" photos in that post), or whatever tree that one was (please email me if you know!)... Or maybe a weeping willow cherry tree, those are lovely. A carpet of pink flowers, that's all I want.

A Little Scared

Our realtor called back and we're going to see 3-4 houses tomorrow. I'm a little scared. I don't want to like the houses too much. We need to be very rational about this. We usually are, we've done OK in the past, but it's still hard because there's no room for error in real estate transactions since it's such a "huge (not big) ticket" item. And I think we also have a tiny bit of "post-traumatic stress disorder" given our past housing woes. I don't think K will lose his job again, though, so... we should be OK. ;-)

I'll let you know how it goes.

Options Are A Very Good Thing

I spent the day in that half-dreaming state of a newly infatuated person. Thinking of the house every few minutes and smiling to myself, the newness of it still clinging to my thoughts in a very pleasant way.

This evening K began to work hard at avoiding the trap of only liking/wanting one house and he was successful! Before he was finished clearing the dinner table I was already convinced that one other house was worth our attention and as he washed dishes he happily sighed and said "I'm glad you like it, because liking only one house is very bad indeed." ;-)

We've just spent nearly an hour looking at multiple listings and we found another interesting option (though it's an old house that has been thoroughly renovated and we don't really want old homes), so that's good. The only thing is that our realtor is about to travel, so I think we're only going to start this whole house hunting game in January. We wonder whether we should wait for the Spring listings to come in before getting serious about an offer... well, because we do have options, this might be a course we're willing to follow.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the "perfect" house we'd seen a couple of months back and were thinking about and driving family members to see was sold! :( My disappointment lasted for about five minutes and then we found a few other lovely homes (one of which had just been listed and sold in a few days, but that one was almost 100K above our budget because it came with 10 acres, so that's fine!).

It's certainly exciting to be looking at houses and thinking about the future again. I think the post about the " negative side" of staying will never get written after all. And that's good too.

I Wish We Weren't So Helplessly Smitten :(

We're breaking all the rules of smart real estate transactions (or any transactions that involve money, for that matter). We are in madly in love with a house when we shouldn't be. Emotions should never be involved in these kinds of things, but... well, we just can't help ourselves.

In addition, it's too early, we shouldn't have been looking at houses in the first place (we can only close in May, that's when our lease ends). Too bad that's not that big of a concern with this house because the builder must be desperate to sell and might wait to close 'till then.

K found more photos online this morning and that isn't helping one bit. Particularly because the description in this other site says that the house has an upstairs laundry! (that, for me, makes this house virtually perfect. And the laundry room is tiled!). Oh, and coincidentally, the tiles in the bathrooms are exactly the same ones we put in the tiny master bath in our previous house (they're porcelain tiles from Brazil, BTW).

If only we hadn't been inside it too... Sigh. I can't stop thinking and dreaming about it. And K has been doing the Math (we can afford it). I hope our realtor gets back to us soon!

P.S. email me if you're curious to see more of the house.

He's Here

For a little more than three days, but I'll gladly take what I get. Remember, the rule is that I see him every two years from two days to two weeks.

It's pretty amazing to see the changes that two years can do to the "little brother" I used to fight play with. After all, he's in his mid-thirties now, no longer a "boy." It's incredible to think that he's the person on earth that probably has the closest DNA to mine (well, except for my sons, I guess -- I'm no biologist, those of you out there who know more than I do, please correct me if I'm wrong), but we couldn't be more different.

If we weren't siblings, we probably wouldn't get along at all. And that's sad. I wish we were more alike. We do have a good relationship, but we're not as close as I wish we could be. Family relations are tough. We choose friends and spouses, but don't get to choose family members (or in-laws, for that matter -- I totally lucked out on that department, picking a spouse with a great family, not that I sometimes don't have my, hmmm... slight reservations about some of them -- never you, my blogging SIL, rest assured). ;-)

In any case, I'm glad. For the sake of my sons I wish we could see him (and his wife, who is not here) more often. The last time we saw him Linton was only four and I think he barely remember spending time with his only maternal uncle then.

OK, gotta go now, it's getting late.

P.S. We found a house today that we liked A LOT. We were just driving aimlessly and decided to go to a completely enclosed street (between two cul-de-sacs -- I love how Linton says this word so nicely, he likes it) in one of the developments we'd been looking into buying before our search was interrupted by the "new development." And then we saw it. It has all the features we wanted -- garage, finished walkout basement. Nice lot. It even has trees in one side (no other houses in the development have trees yet). Why, oh why did we have to see it? It makes me want to the offer for K (and I) to go wrong so we can stay here and buy it. It's tough. OK.